Ahh, it feels gooood to sit down with a mug of coffee and a piece of cinnamon toast... Been a home-going day today.

This morning, my wife Ruth, her daughter (and mine now, too, and I got all fancied up and drove down to Norwalk, to go to a wake and a funeral. More accurate, a wake and a home-going. I have never met the man who was being celebrated, but he had been my wife's friend of many years, before I met her, and our daughter new him and his family. It was a rousing celebration, with a lot of music. I mean, a lot. Forget hymnals. Folks know the songs, and everyone just sings. But, the most moving part of the celebration was when one of the deceased's sons got up to offer his reflections about his father.
He talked with great love, and humor, and then he read something. The funeral home has a website, where people can leave messages and memories. The son read one that had been posted by someone he didn't know. It was a long letter of loving praise for the father by someone who had known him since he (the someone) was three years old. As he recounted in the message he'd posted, his own father was rarely around and didn't like the little boy, but the man whos home-going it was has befriended the little three year old boy and had been a better father to him than most boys have. He'd come to all of his birthday parties, taught him sports, and was always there for him. The message was in praise of fatherhood, and the little boy, now grown up and a father, wanted to praise the man for teaching him how to be a good father. What was touching was that the deceased's son had no idea who the man was who'd posted the message. At first that seemed odd that he wouldn't have heard of that little boy, many years ago. When he reads the name at the end of the message, he asked if the man was there, to stand up. A young man, probably in his early twenties stood up, fileld with modesty. There was probably a thirty year difference between him and the man's son, which is why they had been unaware of each other. The whole congregation rose to their feet, and there was hardly a dry eye in the church. That moment defined a man's life.

After the home-going, we went to see a relative of my wife's, who is a baptist minister. He's been in a nursing home with his wife for the last year or so, but more recently he's been hospitalized. When we came in, he didn't recognize us at first. My daughter is a minister, so I thought that she'd be the first one he'd recognize. He's a relative of my wife's and even though she's seen him countless times, nothing registered until my wife and our daughter
told him who they were. I'd met him two or three times, and I think he's heard me sing with my group, but he drew a blank when I told him who I was. As we talked, his mind slipped in and out, but one thing he kept repeating. When my wife or daughter asked him when he was going home, he said, "I'm going home tomorrow." He is in no shape to be released, because he's on oxygen and intervenous feeding.
But he's in fine shape for going home.

I expect we'll be going to another home-going, one of these days.

Jerry